Woodstock for capitalists -- trip planning help needed!

I am making my first pilgrimage to Omaha for Warren Buffett's Annual General Meeting on the 1st of May -- and I'm coming all the way from Australia.

I have decided to rent a car and make the trip from LA to Omaha then on to New York.

I leave LA on Monday the 28th of April, will spend a night or two in Vegas and have to arrive in Omaha on Friday evening. I spend the weekend in Omaha and then have another week to make my way to New York.

Timing

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

I think that you'll have to settle for a day and a half in Las Vegas, but otherwise the timing of your trip should work out as planned. You'll need three full days to cover the 1300 miles from Las Vegas to Omaha if you want to experience the Rocky Mountains. You should plan on spending a few hours each at Zion and Arches National Parks and just enjoying the views along I-70 through Utah and Colorado. Because these wonders will be on the first day of your drive from Las Vegas, you should probably move your first night's stop a bit westward of Grand Junction, say Green River, so that you see Zion on the first day, Arches on the second and still make Denver by the end of day Thursday. But making the drive to Omaha on Wed/Thus/Fri means that you'll only have Monday evening and all day Tuesday to enjoy Las Vegas, still that should be enough.

With a week to get from Omaha to New York you'll be a bit less pressed for time on the second leg of your journey depending, of course on how much time you're going to be spending in Detroit and Washington. You could make the drive in as little as three days, so assuming a day each in Detroit and Washington and a half day in New York just to make sure that you make your plane, you've still got a day and a half to play around with. Certainly you could spend that in Chicago or Philadelphia, or on the shores of either a Great Lake or the Atlantic, depending on your own tastes.